If a man has the means to fee a lawyer he is in a better case, or if he has committed an offence which is serious enough to cause his remand to a higher Court, for there he will get legal assistance free; but if he is simply a petty offender with no one to help him he will probably get dealt with without any loss of time and be sentenced by scale. It is time that some provision was made to have the police court made less a police court and more a court of justice. There is far too much police about it for the public interest. Anybody may attend, but few do so; and the proceedings might for all practical purposes be conducted in private, so far as the towns are concerned. The cases are seldom reported, and when the newspapers do notice the proceedings it is usually in a jocular way; but they are no joke to the persons concerned. A sensational murder is detailed and canvassed as though the only matter of importance to the country was the hanging of the wretch who has got into the limelight. Every hysterical theorist is anxious to get his opinion of the proper way to treat criminals put before the public; and all the time we are busily engaged in putting into our machine young and old who have taken the first step downwards, and congratulating ourselves on the smoothness with which it works. It is not cruelty that causes us to behave in this way, but sheer stupidity and lack of imagination. Now and then a man who has eyes to see gets made a Bailie, but he makes a poor police judge. Those who look upon themselves and are credited by others with the heaven-born instinct are as likely to be the men whom no one would trust to be a judge in his own cause; and it is quite possible for a man who is narrow-minded, vindictive, and callous to have the fate of his poorer fellow-citizens placed in his hands, and, because he likes the work, to continue on the bench long after his term as a Bailie has expired. If it is important to deal with wrongdoing in the beginning; if it is desirable to prevent people from being sent to prison when that can be avoided; it is obvious that we must see that our minor courts are so arranged and so officered that those who come before them have at least as good a chance of having their cases weighed as the old hands who go to the higher Courts get there. The Sheriff may sit to try cases summarily, just as the Bailie does; but the court is ordered differently. The Procurator-Fiscal has no connection with the police. The case is reported by them to him and he makes his own enquiries and may drop proceedings altogether. The Sheriff is an experienced lawyer and he sees that the prisoner's case is properly presented. The prisoner, if he wishes, may have a law-agent to appear on his behalf, and in jury cases it is the duty of the prison authorities to see that a lawyer has the defence in hand.